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A Poet's Prayer

Where there is laughter, let me bring a punchline. Where there is colour, let me bring the taste of blue. Were there is certainty, let me bring nuance. Where there is strife, let me bring alternative opinions. Where there is hatred, let me bring questions and questions and yet more questions. Where there is power, let me bring a kick in the shins. Let me do these things even as my knees shake and my voice cracks thin. Where there is confusion, let me bring ridiculous images. Where there is anger, let me bring focus and a target. Where there is an empty heart, let me bring something to put in it. Where there is boredom, let me bring the acceptance of absurdity. Where there is grey, let me bring shades. Let me do these things even as I turn to fate and tell it to wait its turn. Where there is death, let me bring memories. Where there is injustice, let me bring a microscope and tweezers. Where there is a table, let me bring elbows. Where there is fear, let me bring a couch ...
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Fourth Monkey

Three wise monkeys contemplate a view from their warm fireplace perch, with eyes covered, ears blocked, speaking not a word. Bombs fall in places I will never go to. People I will never meet are locked up for love. Help I will never have to ask for is denied to those who need it. So, I squeeze my eyes shut, jam my fingers into my ears, hum loudly with my lips firmly closed, and try to become wise.   May/June 2026
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Creative Burnout

I don’t have a poem today, no profound thoughts have come my way. I haven’t got a thing to say and nothing happened, anyway. I might have mentioned the bright blue dust spread across the road like candy floss from a flowering ceanothus, but that didn’t really feel like enough. I could have ranted about political things, about how fascism seems to be growing wings and all of the hatred and fear that it brings, but that’s a song I just don’t want to sing. I may have joked about something fun, like missing the bus and having to run or lots of exciting things that I’ve done, but today feels like a day with precisely none. Maybe tomorrow will be a better day, a little bit brighter, a little less grey, and I’ll remember to love and to play. But today . . . I don’t have a poem today. May 2025
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Redvales One

These children will never conform never fit in never sit in neat rows, reciting times tables in tidy uniforms They will never drive a car open an ISA, stand in civilised queues or pay off a mortgage These children will never get a job, get drunk, join the army, get laid, get married, or have children of their own They will only rely, unable to be relied upon They will only react with the absolute honesty that the rest of us have crushed They will only live without a concept of tomorrow of how to be young, middle-aged, old of anything other than now But they will be a gift for those whose need is to give, and maybe that’s freedom, of a sort   April 2026
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Empress Trees

The Empress trees are blossoming. Dusty purple bells ring a silence over Saint Peter’s Square. Yesterday there was Britain First, there was Palestine Action, the Anti-Fascist Coalition, Black Lives Matter, Free Iran, Trans Rights, Stand Up to Racism. Yesterday there were flags and banners, and voices raised in anger, in despair, in hatred, in hope, in need, in defiance. Today is a Sunday, and the Empress trees are blossoming  over Saint Peter’s Square. But nobody is looking at them. April 2026
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Entangled (sonnet)

Let me become, into life, entangled Fused at the soul with all that surrounds me No longer fixed, limited, strangled But endless, without edges, liquid, free Let me become perpetual motion A shattering mirror, scattering sight Lord Shiva’s dance, destruction, creation From moment to moment, blistering light Let me become mycelium, compost Merge DNA with ochre roots and leaves Never to settle into stagnant loss To rain down as spores in the air we breathe Until then, simply human I will stay Knowing we’re much more than I can ever say April 2026 Note: This poem is a stand-alone reworking of Entangled (Darkness into Light) .   Acknowledgement should also be made of the strong influence of the work of Sophie Strand and Alok Vaid-Menon.
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Radcliffe Parish Church (of Saint Mary)

What are you standing on, Saint Mary with your massive, sandstone feet? What slice of time has been compressed, tissue thin beneath the weight of your buttressed walls, beneath the echoing stone floor, beneath the bright windows, the altar, the cross, the eagle’s golden wings, beneath the feet and knees of uncounted generations, and the pews worn smooth by a thousand backsides? What were you standing on, Saint Mary, before Bartholemew was sent away, before the first graves were dug and filled, before the first mass was spoken, before the foundation stone was laid, before the first plans were scratched out? What brought you to this plot, Saint Mary, to this spot, this site, this chunk of earth? Who did you replace, before the Normans raised their tower, before the Saxons built their wooden halls, before the one-God came and came again, before weary Roman feet marched past heading north, before you shook out your veil that night? Are your gargoyles carved in the images of those who might...
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